The

use of dog­gie bags should be limited to more ca­sual dining es­tab­lish­ments, such as pubs or cafes, and they def­i­nitely shouldn’t be re­quested at Miche­lin-starred restau­rants. This is es­pe­cially so if you are dining at such a restau­rant with busi­ness clients, or those of higher author­ity, who you are try­ing to im­press, not em­bar­rass.

It’s a mark of pres­tige for res­tau­ra­teurs to earn Miche­lin-star sta­tus. It’s a hall­mark of out­stand­ing dining qual­ity, mas­tery of tech­nique and con­sis­tency of ex­cel­lence in cui­sine and ser­vice. If din­ers ask for a dog­gie bag at the end of the meal, it could in­di­cate the food be­ing served was not up to stan­dard. This could cause an in­sult to the chef and the diner, and may leave a bad eti­quette im­pres­sion.

The dining eti­quette re­gard­ing left­overs varies be­tween coun­tries. I know it is com­mon that servers in for­mal dining es­tab­lish­ments in North Amer­ica of­fer dog­gie bags to din­ers to take away left­over food. How­ever, in Euro­pean coun­tries, such as Eng­land, France and Italy, din­ers would never think of ask­ing for dog­gie bags in proper restau­rants.

Roberts has spent 20 years in mar­ket­ing for such brands as Louis Vuit­ton and Dolce & Gab­bana